Teens in Space: The Zadon Wars (part 8-The Counterattack Begins)

Galactic Date 5127.504

Gina Andromeda’s song “Love” tops the Xares-27 charts today, reaching #1 after a meteoric rise that marks a new high point in the 16 year old singing sensation’s career. Today, the big boobed blonde superstar will appear in an interview with Xares Broadcasting Systems (XBS) to confirm all the widespread rumors about the song. “Yes, I was making love when I recorded it…with my boyfriend…I was getting close when I hit all those high notes and that long moan was when I had my orgasm!” Gina admits. She also confirms that the male groan at the end of the song was produced by her boyfriend as he ejaculated deep inside of her. The interview generates an immediate scandal, even in the sexually liberated society of Xares-27. Xarian mothers order their teenage daughters not to listen to the song, but this only fuels its popularity and adolescent girls all over Xares do their level best to imitate Gina’s high-pitched orgasmic moan that serves as the ballad’s climax…

Delta Quadrant

In the predawn darkness, 5,000 space troopers in Delta Quadrant are rousted out of their bunks at 0300. Run through a cold shower, but deprived of breakfast, the naked teens are then marched over to the locker rooms to don their black battle armor; they’re the first wave of the renewed offensive that will bring final victory over the Zadons. Most, but not all of them are from Epsilon Quadrant; carrottop is one of the thousands who wriggles his bare ass into his tight fitting armored pants. Running on just a few hours of sleep, the teens are eager for combat; while they’ve enjoyed scoring Delta pussy over the past couple of weeks, they’re now looking forward to action of a different kind. As they were told in the training video, this is not going to be a quick, easy mission; their armor is specially equipped with an upgraded breathing system that that will allow them to survive for 48 hours without taking off their helmets. Each boy is given a dermal nutrient patch that he applies to his upper left arm before putting on his upper body armor; the patch will provide him with sustenance for the next 2 days and he’s assured that it will help to suppress his hunger, too. Before putting on his helmet, he swallows an extra strength binding pill that will prevent his bowels from moving for the next 48 hours. He also tucks two hydration pills under his tongue; one of the pills has a slightly thicker coating and will dissolve more slowly, releasing into his system only after the first pill has been depleted. Once he’s in his armor, helmet locked in place, he dons extra gear not normally used in any other quadrant. He cinches a belt around his waist; attached to it are a sheathed 6 inch combat knife and a water bottle. He’s mystified by both items; the knife, since he obviously won’t be able to kill a Zadon with it and the water bottle since he won’t be able to take his helmet off to drink from it during the mission. He then heaves a backpack onto his shoulders; pairing off with another trooper, the two boys help each other to adjust and tighten the straps on their respective packs. The pack contains food, an extra pair of boots and a blanket, as well as a miscellaneous hodgepodge of other items, an extra 25 pounds of weight that our teen will be lugging around on his back. Taking up his laser rifle in his thickly gloved hands, he’s now ready for combat. Even more weighted down than the average troopers are the corporals and sergeants. Besides carrying his laser rifle and hefting his backpack, each noncom also has a rocket launcher slung over his shoulder; a laser pistol and ammo pouch full of rockets compete for room on his belt with the water bottle and the useless knife. Some of the sergeants also sport plasma grenades clipped to whatever open space they can find on their belts and we also spot at least one sergeant with a backup, small-charge laser pistol in a thigh holster. Weighed down and clanking with all their extra gear, the teenage troopers march to the jumping off point; once there, they have several hours of standing in formation ahead of them, just staring out into the darkness. Their empty bellies rumble, but their hunger is suppressed by their excitement and eagerness for combat…

Beta Quadrant

Even as the space troopers in Delta prepare for combat, an equally important operation is already underway elsewhere on Xares. Another force of 5,000 troopers has been assembled for a strike mission to take out a quad of Zadons that’s been detected near a ruined village in the northeastern corner of Beta Quadrant. The intention of the quad is unknown, but such a concentration of cyborgs represents a major threat to the entire sector, especially after the surprise raid on Xenon. Unlike the abortive ambush attempt in Alpha a few days ago, this mission will be a straight-on assault; converging on the quad from three directions, north, south and west, the space troopers will throw themselves at the Zadons in dense assault waves and the cost in human lives is expected to be high, even if the operation is successful. Not wanting to alert the cyborgs by flying in a fleet of transports, the space troopers begin marching in the early morning hours towards their objectives. If everything is timed correctly, they should be hitting the quad with coordinated mass assault waves and rocket fire from three directions just as the sun is coming up over the horizon…

Delta Quadrant

The massed ranks of space troopers watch as a signal rocket streaks up into the darkened sky and then bursts in a shower of stars. The long awaited command from Kaylee rings in their ears: “Advance…Advance…Assault Wave Formation…Assault Wave Formation…” The heavily encumbered troopers lumber forward, the scrawnier 14 year old recruits with their shoulders hunched from the weight of their backpacks. Moving out as daylight slowly starts to seep over the empty landscape, the advancing teens brace themselves; they expect to be immediately swarmed by Zadon battle drones, but the dreaded flying predators never materialize. There’s no trace of the Zadons and in fact, there’s nothing at all to be seen, just wide open terrain. After about 15 minutes, the sergeants and corporals order the troopers to adopt open formation and the teens begin to relax. They call out good naturedly to each other; there’s not going to be any fighting after all today, just a march to the first day’s objective line. The ground is still solid beneath their feet but after another 15 minutes, it suddenly starts to feel squishy. This isn’t unexpected; just as they were briefed in the training video, the boys know that they’re entering the bog…

Aside from the town of Xenna and some other smaller villages, most of Delta Quadrant is taken up by a giant bog that separates the human settlements from the Zadon controlled sector. The cyborgs are on permanent defense in Delta; they aren’t stupid enough to venture into the bog, knowing that they would literally be swallowed up if they tried. Instead, they’ve so heavily fortified the solid ground on their side that no transports can land there; every square foot of terrain not occupied by a Zadon pod has a live electrical grid, molten plasma pit or just a plain, old fashioned scrap metal obstacle that renders landing a transport impossible. The only way to get through the bog is on foot; the goal of the offensive is to secure the deposits of rare trace minerals on the Zadon side, but exactly how and why capturing these deposits is going to result in the total collapse of the Zadon war effort has never been fully explained by anybody in the High Command…

The troopers’ feet start to sink into the muck as soon as they take their first steps into the bog. The pace of the advance, already slow, grinds to a crawl as the weighted down teens struggle forward and the ground becomes even more squishy; soon the boys find themselves sloshing through liquid muck up to their ankles and in some places even up to their knees.